Gabriel Garcia Moreno

Gabriel Garcia Moreno (24 December 1821-6 August 1875) was President of Ecuador from 2 April 1861 to 30 August 1865, succeeding Francisco Robles and preceding Rafael Carvajal, and again from 10 August 1869 to 6 August 1875, succeeding Manuel de Ascasubi and preceding Rafael Carvajal. He was a member of the Conservative Party of Ecuador.

Biography
Gabriel Garcia Moreno was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, the son of a Spanish merchant father and an aristocratic criollo mother. He became a lawyer after considering joining the Catholic priesthood, and he also worked as a conservative journalist. Garcia was a devout Catholic and a monarchist, and he dreamed of seeing a Spanish prince on the throne of Ecuador. In 1848, he was elected a senator after returning from a trip to post-Spring of Nations Europe, and he was elected president in 1861. Garcia attended Mass daily, and he invited the Society of Jesus to come to Ecuador, allowing for them to flee from persecution in Germany. He was highly intolerant of other cultures, however; he required for all political candidates and voters to be Catholic, and he made Catholicism the state religion in 1869. However, Garcia clamped down on corruption in the country, had army officers trained in Prussia and illiterate soldiers given basic skills, closed houses of prostitution and built hospitals in every town, promoted the nation's public work projects, and got rid of unimportant government positions to decrease government expenditure. In 1869, he founded the Conservative Party of Ecuador, and his leadership of the country saved Ecuador from the anarchy that it had experienced from 1845 to 1860. However, his authoritarianism and ultraconservatism alienated liberals in the country, and liberals were infuriated when he was re-elected in 1875. On 6 August 1875, he was assassinated by Faustino Rayo, who attacked him with a machete on the steps of the National Palace as others fired revolvers at him.